We've found that experiential marketing, a new trend in marketing, has taken the millennial market by storm. This enters a new wave of brand-to-consumer interactions that allow consumers to interact with a brand and their product or service.

What are some tips you might have on creating a successful experiential marketing campaign?

Here are some that come to mind:Using Social Media
With millennials, there's no end to how much they use social media on a daily basis. Branded campaign hashtags would be useful in attracting the millennial market online, after the campaign event is over.

FOMO Tactic
Fear of missing out. An incentive to draw out millennials who wish to explore and experience the world around them. Even better, millennials who share their experience during a campaign can instill the FOMO effect onto their friends, drawing more of the market to your campaign.

Good Design
Design matters, especially to millennials. We suggest having your advertisement materials, marketing flyers, banners, and event invites to be designed in an aesthetically pleasing way to attract this market.

Corporate Social Responsibility
Tie your campaign to a social cause. Millennials are passionate about change and will rally behind brands that not only do the same, but also believe in the same social changes as they do. Authentic, sincere, and honest brands are what millennials want, not money-hungry corporations.

Free Stuff
Everyone loves free stuff. Make it memorable, useful even, but don't let them get it for free. Make them work for it! Because no one wants someone to show up for free stuff at an event and then leave.

Experiences
Millennials crave experiences that engage them IRL while providing content for their digital lives. Make your brand's experience memorable, relatable, and relevant, one that engages them with their friends, your brand, and the community, in the online world and the offline world.

So basically what I'm reading here is, if we want to attract millennials with our marketing... We need to use most of the same tactics, and psychology, that we use to attract any other generation of consumers?

Experiential marketing, and all of the techniques mentioned here, have been around for a long, long time. (I mean the psychology of the techniques, not the media)

Many years ago there used to be a "Worlds Fair" that people would travel thousands of miles to attend (all kinds of marketers, and peddlers were there)

And during the early years of radio (and then television) most of the popular shows were created for and/or sponsored by big brand advertisers

As for memorable experiences... One company that comes to mind (off the top of my head) that allowed, and still allows consumers to interact with a brand and their products, would be Disneyland.

They've allowed customers to interact with their self proclaimed "happiest place on Earth" for over 50 years. And they managed to spread their message (and products) across the globe, before the internet was even a thing.

And yes, the internet has changed the media landscape, quite a bit

But even though times change... issues change... and technology changes...

We've found that experiential marketing, a new trend in marketing, has taken the millennial market by storm. This enters a new wave of brand-to-consumer interactions that allow consumers to interact with a brand and their product or service.

What are some tips you might have on creating a successful experiential marketing campaign?

Here are some that come to mind:Using Social Media
With millennials, there's no end to how much they use social media on a daily basis. Branded campaign hashtags would be useful in attracting the millennial market online, after the campaign event is over.

FOMO Tactic
Fear of missing out. An incentive to draw out millennials who wish to explore and experience the world around them. Even better, millennials who share their experience during a campaign can instill the FOMO effect onto their friends, drawing more of the market to your campaign.

Good Design
Design matters, especially to millennials. We suggest having your advertisement materials, marketing flyers, banners, and event invites to be designed in an aesthetically pleasing way to attract this market.

Corporate Social Responsibility
Tie your campaign to a social cause. Millennials are passionate about change and will rally behind brands that not only do the same, but also believe in the same social changes as they do. Authentic, sincere, and honest brands are what millennials want, not money-hungry corporations.

Free Stuff
Everyone loves free stuff. Make it memorable, useful even, but don't let them get it for free. Make them work for it! Because no one wants someone to show up for free stuff at an event and then leave.

Experiences
Millennials crave experiences that engage them IRL while providing content for their digital lives. Make your brand's experience memorable, relatable, and relevant, one that engages them with their friends, your brand, and the community, in the online world and the offline world.

Every now and again, someone discovers America again, gets excited, starts a thread.

A couple of weeks ago, someone on this Forum found out that youtube is good for marketing, and started a thread, got deflated when they figured out other people knew of it from waaay before.

C'est la vie, no?

Originally Posted by SARubin

So basically what I'm reading here is, if we want to attract millennials with our marketing... We need to use most of the same tactics, and psychology, that we use to attract any other generation of consumers?

Experiential marketing, and all of the techniques mentioned here, have been around for a long, long time. (I mean the psychology of the techniques, not the media)

Many years ago there used to be a "Worlds Fair" that people would travel thousands of miles to attend (all kinds of marketers, and peddlers were there)

And during the early years of radio (and then television) most of the popular shows were created for and/or sponsored by big brand advertisers

As for memorable experiences... One company that comes to mind (off the top of my head) that allowed, and still allows consumers to interact with a brand and their products, would be Disneyland.

They've allowed customers to interact with their self proclaimed "happiest place on Earth" for over 50 years. And they managed to spread their message (and products) across the globe, before the internet was even a thing.

And yes, the internet has changed the media landscape, quite a bit

But even though times change... issues change... and technology changes...

When someone says " Experiential Marketing " think hands on or a physical interaction. even that is a bit of a stretch, if you read up on the subject it is more about Event based marketing than anything.. but the concepts have been brought into non location activities such as the example.

It is effective... I would say that the #1 thing you can do as a Marketer when targeting Millenials, is to get them to post to their social network Hey I buy this or use this. This becomes " word of mouth advertising " without the words usually LOL another term that comes to mind is peer validation.

Its not that this stuff has never been done before its the media in use that has changed. The other aspect of this is that the form of communication has changed with the times.. word of mouth is now a visual assertion. A picture speaks 1000 words right? And being Millenials that are balled up in the corner full of insecurities they would rather post a photo than actually having to talk to someone and tell them about how they use the tire guy around the corner.

What about some offline marketing methods? I have been thinking about some promotional items for my business. For example, like some stuff from https://www.pinsource.com/pins/custom I think it might work nicely for my business. What are your thoughts on it?

My tips for creating a successful experiential campaign, at this stage of the industries life would be organic & immersion. Take what SARubin said about Disney and how its a "memorable experience" well, he's right. Once you enter Disney you are engulfed in the experience. Every nook and cranny is Disney, this is an organic immersive experience.

The idea of experiential is creating that memorable experience via interaction with a brand. The trick, make it organic, not forced. For example, Nike recently produced a campaign titled "React Land" (Link below) where they invited customers currently shopping at a Nike store to take part in a video game that allowed them to test out sneakers, create an 8-bit version video game character of themselves and play that character in the video game! This is organic because the customers were already in the midst of the buying lifecycle, shoe shopping. Now they get to experience the shoe in its organic form (running, walking) not just tip toeing around/looking in a mirror and best of all, it was done through an activity that Nike's core demographic appreciates, video games!

What about immersion? Experiential isn't new, so these millennials have engaged with a lot of different experiential campaigns or at least seen them shared on social media. So, creating something that will immerse the consumer in the experience will be the most memorable today. Take the Nike campaign for example, the consumer ran on a treadmill, wearing Nike's while facing giant screens that encompassed their entire view. The only better option would have been VR, which is possible but the tech might just not have been up to par to fit the experience at the time, though VR is used in campaigns. Anyways, the consumer felt like they were in this video game! This is what I mean by immersion. This creates a lasting experience that will be talked about, aka bragged about to all their friends and family, extending the brands campaign organically.

The tips L7 Creative listed apply as well. These are standard in todays campaigns because now matter what, consumers are going to share via social media, take photos & videos and create FOMO for their followers, pretty standard stuff today. But, creating that organic immersive experience will drive the impact brands are looking for!

True that traditional marketing mixes are used to still drive sales for Disney but the experiential aspect of being in the park is what brings people back. If the park was such a memorable experience would ppl return or buy anything in the park? Every aspect inside of Disney is used to market and drive sales. Merchandise, food and drink stores, photo ops and more all fit the experience to drive sales.

True that traditional marketing mixes are used to still drive sales for Disney but the experiential aspect of being in the park is what brings people back. If the park was such a memorable experience would ppl return or buy anything in the park? Every aspect inside of Disney is used to market and drive sales. Merchandise, food and drink stores, photo ops and more all fit the experience to drive sales.

lol word of mouth will forever be the best form of marketing

you really believe this ..Disney is built from below ground up to deliver the once in a lifetime experience that they marketed ..so it not built to get every last dime out of people ..

its not burning man or some exotic music festival .. to get people in to spend 7 dollar per bottle of water... after spending hundreds for tickets .. or much of Vegas that now make much of its money on event shows and non gambling expensive activities ..

another thing to study if you can suspend biases about video games.. is the amount people spend in micro transaction in video games .. hundred or thousands of dollars for digital items they don't own that someone increase the enjoyment of their experience in an online video game

Now Vegas is the place to study for Experiential marketing tactics .. as it is the adult theme park that people spend 6 months to a year saving for or paying thier credit card bills from

so maybe just maybe .. providing top notch experience and expected quality experience .. and having every employee in the park have a good attitude while around the parents and children.. is not marketing .. but delivery on the expectations built up from marketing